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Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 2 May 1950

Vol. 120 No. 10

Committee on Finance. - Social Welfare Bill, 1949—Committee.

Sections 1 to 3 inclusive agreed to.
SECTION 4.

I move amendment No. 1:—

In sub-section (1), line 22, before "as" to insert "not being earlier than the date of coming into operation of the scheme envisaged in the White Paper (P. No. 9661)."

It is hardly necessary to explain what the scheme envisaged in that White Paper is. It is the comprehensive scheme of social insurance. There has been some doubt abroad as to when, if ever, the scheme will come into operation. The Minister has repeatedly stated, with a certain air of confidence, that the scheme will pass into law during the present year. However, having regard to the statements of some of the Deputies who support the Government, particularly the Deputies of Clann na Talmhan, that they are committed to opposing this Bill, I take it that the Minister for Lands, being leader of that Party, is of the same mind. The first question one asks is: if the scheme comes into law will it have the full approval of the entire Government? Many people have hazarded a guess that, with the commitments of the Minister for Lands, that scheme will hardly come into operation before the general election.

Apart altogether from that, however, there probably will be certain difficulties facing the Minister before he brings legislation into the House which will enact that scheme. The Minister in this section refers to the transfer day, as—

"such day as may be appointed in that behalf by the Minister by Order".

The Minister may at some time appoint a day in anticipation of the coming into operation of that scheme. This amendment is put down for the purpose of delaying the transfer of the staffs of the National Health Insurance Society into the Department of Social Welfare prematurely. The Minister's transfer day might be much earlier than the date of the coming into operation of the comprehensive scheme. Until such time as the scheme comes into operation, it can hardly be argued that the necessity arises for the taking over of the entire staff of the National Health Insurance Society by the Department of Social Welfare. Until such time as the comprehensive scheme becomes law, national health insurance, as such, will have to be administered in the usual way, examining claims and providing benefits for persons insured in the society. Therefore, I put it to the Minister that he ought to accept this amendment. The Minister may answer me by saying that he has no intention of appointing the transfer day until such time as he is sure that the comprehensive scheme is about to come into operation. Nevertheless, having regard to the air of uncertainty abroad, not only amongst the general public, but amongst Deputies who support the Government and even amongst members of the Government, I think that there is no urgency about the transfer and that it should be postponed until such time as the comprehensive scheme proper passes into law.

I do not propose to accept this amendment because I think it is based on want of faith by Deputy Lynch in what is going to happen in the sphere of social security. In any case, perhaps at the outset the best thing I can do is to commend a close study by him of the views expressed by Deputy Dr. Ryan when speaking in this House on the 23rd June last, when he said, as reported in column 1341 of the Official Report, referring to the National Health Insurance Society:—

"It would be better to have it in before going on with the comprehensive scheme because it would be easier to start off from the new point then."

That is the view of a Deputy who was Minister for Social Welfare, who had given this matter considerable study and who, having been able to appraise the situation at close range, came down here definitely on the side that efficiency lay in the direction of taking in the society first, because he realised, as anybody who has given the matter any attention will realise, that when the society is in and only when the society is in can you begin to plan effectively for rearing up on the integrated sections the larger structure of a comprehensive scheme. It is true that when the society comes into the Department claims for benefit will be paid in much the same way. That is not the point. Deputy Lynch clearly overlooked the administrative end of this, that we have to get power to do the things which the society is now doing. We have to get power to integrate its staff with the staff of the Department. We have to get power to integrate its records with the new recording scheme which will have to be devised as part of the comprehensive scheme. We cannot do that at the moment. It is only when the society is integrated in the Department that we will have the administrative power to weld the society with the rest of the Department and thus evolve a scheme of administration for the new scheme which is to follow.

If Deputy Lynch reflects on the administrative machine which must necessarily be built up to administer the comprehensive scheme, he will clearly realise, as his colleague, Deputy Dr. Ryan, realises, that you must have the society in first in order to enable you to plan effectively, because you certainly cannot plan with the largest section of the comprehensive scheme outside the control of the Department, with no power whatever to interfere in the day-to-day administration of the society, no power to touch its records or to alter its administrative line so as to weave that in with whatever larger pattern is planned. It is clear that the integration of the society is a first and very vital step in the implementation of the comprehensive scheme.

In case the Deputy is inclined to give himself up to despair about the comprehensive scheme, I want to assure him and anybody else who may be infected by his melancholia in regard to this matter that they need not have any doubt about the comprehensive scheme. It is the best bet they can have. Having said that, and I hope cheered up the Deputy, I hope he realises, as his colleague realises, that integration is essential if you are going to build properly.

I think the Minister is enough of a democrat not to ask that the views of any other member of this Party should be imposed on me. As I said on the Second Reading, in cases such as this—if the comprehensive scheme is to become law—the amalgamation of the society would probably lead to better administration. Nevertheless, as the Minister is aware, the present position is that various branches of his Department are being run practically independently. That is something which the ordinary Deputy must be aware of. If he has to make inquiries about widows' pensions he has to go to one particular place and if he has to make inquiries about old age pensions he has to go to a place located in a different part of the city. Therefore, the Minister's Department at the moment is being run in such a fashion that if each particular section of it is not autonomous at least it is almost independent of its sister section within the Department. I maintain that the National Health Insurance Society could be run equally independently until such time as the scheme is ready to come into operation. I do not deny that a certain amount of oiling of the machine might be necessary beforehand. Apart altogether from the Minister's assurance and his tip from the horse's mouth, it is not improbable that this scheme will be postponed for a considerable time—it may be a year: it may be two years. The Minister may appoint a transfer day many months, if not years, prior to the actual coming into operation of the scheme. I hold, then, that it is not necessary that the National Health Insurance Society staff should be incorporated into the Department of Social Welfare proper until such time as the scheme is ready to be put into operation.

I mentioned on the Second Reading that there are members of the society's staff, whether the Minister is aware of it or not, who are not particularly anxious to be co-opted into full establishment in the Civil Service. In the meantime, certain difficulties will arise that will have to be smoothed out as regards the rights of members on transfer and, by delaying the transfer day at least to a short time before the coming into operation of the scheme, many of these difficulties which may not now be apparent will have become apparent at that stage. Unless the Minister can give an assurance that the scheme is about to come into operation in the very near future, a transfer day appointed for a date years or even months prior to the coming into operation of this scheme is not necessary.

I have been prompted to intervene by reason of the remarks of the previous speaker to the effect that certain members of the existing staff are not anxious to come within the Civil Service scheme provided for in this measure. I, with others, met a deputation to our group and I am aware that the same deputation met the Fianna Fáil group. They put up certain points for the consideration of the members of our Party in connection with the proposed transfer and the effect which the transfer would have on their future position if and when they came into the Civil Service. Reference was made to the possibility of any members of the existing National Health Insurance Society staff objecting to going into the Civil Service under the conditions in connection with the proposed transfer. The spokesman quite definitely stated that the overwhelming majority of the staff —he did not know any who held the opposite point of view—was in favour of coming into the Civil Service and taking whatever chances came to them as a result of that transfer.

I think Deputy Davin defeats his own argument and supports mine inasmuch as he used the words "overwhelming majority of the staff". I said that some members of the staff of the National Health Insurance Society are opposed to becoming civil servants. They lose certain rights——

Is that not on Section 7?

I am making my own case and I hope the Chair will permit me to finish. I have spoken to at least one member of the indoor staff and several members of the outdoor staff in regard to this matter. The rights for the transfer of the outdoor staff will possibly come up for discussion at a later stage. However, let neither the Minister nor Deputy Davin be under any illusions that there are not members of the staff who are not anxious to become civil servants.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

I move amendment No. 2:—

In sub-section (2), line 28, to delete "sub-section (2) of".

This amendment is consequential on the addition of a new sub-section (3) to Section 20. The scope of that section is to be widened and the amendment in this instance is, therefore, necessary.

Is the amendment agreed to?

We had better not pass it until we see about amendment No. 18, which is consequential.

I indicated, on the Second Stage, the method of appeal in respect of National Health Insurance Society cases. I said that I hoped to devise some machinery by which appeals under national health insurance legislation would be somewhat similar to that in respect of disputes under unemployment insurance and widows' and orphans' pensions cases. I am widening the scope of the section. It has the effect of disarming me of any personal power of deciding national health insurance appeals and it follows a pattern which is already there and working satisfactorily. I think the Deputy will probably agree with that when he comes to the section.

Amendment put and agreed to.
Question proposed: "That Section 4, as amended, stand part of the Bill"—put and agreed to.
Sections 5 and 6 put and agreed to.
SECTION 7.

I should like to say, in respect of amendment No. 3, in the name of Deputy Dr. Ryan, that we do not consider that it is necessary. We are legally advised that an agent of the society is an employee of the society and the section, as drafted, covers agents.

Outdoor employees of the society appear to think that they are not covered. They are not sure whether an officer is an employee or not.

"Employee" covers them. I made it very clear on the Second Reading that they were being taken over. "Employee" is the key word. I am legally advised that, in fact, it covers them. The amendment, therefore, is not necessary. Let me assure the Deputy that if there were any doubt about it I would accept the amendment, or I would introduce an amendment myself to clear up the matter.

If the Minister says that they are covered, that is good. There are, however, agents who can only be regarded as part-time. I do not know if they are covered by this or not.

Every single person who is a part-time agent is covered and will be taken over.

Whether part-time or full?

Yes. The bulk of them are part-time.

It might be well to reassure those people.

I am taking this opportunity now to say that all the agents will be taken in.

To reassure them in the Bill.

I am legally advised that this does it.

If the Minister is so advised and if the words only clarify it, I do not see why they should not be put in. There is some doubt, and legal opinions may differ. In many cases, when the legal advice given to the State has been contested in the court, the legal advice has been found wrong. There is a case, not of a person described as an employee but of an occasional agent, acting in very occasional circumstances, who is on call, so to speak. If we were to try to define "employee", we would have to examine to what extent his or her work related, in percentage, to the total work done elsewhere. The Minister might find there would be difficulty, if there were some contest about it, as to whether the person was an occasional employee, not being an employee in the sense the Minister wishes to understand it and we wish to understand it. I do not know whether he knows that there may be doubt cast on it if the contest should arise.

There is no contest, and no doubt in this. The person whom the Deputy has just created, that agent on call, is a non-existing functionary so far as the society is concerned. There are two types of persons—one, the officers, that is, the secretary and treasurer; the rest are the employees, including everybody employed by the society. All are being taken over, with the exception of three people, who are professional people and who act as officers. Every agent will be taken over—the messengers, the liftman, the people who operate the machines and the entire clerical staff are all grouped under employees. If I put in "agents" I would have to catalogue the rest. I am legally advised that there is no doubt about it, and I will bring in an amending Bill at any time if a doubt should arise.

The only doubt I have is this. If I am working on my own driving a hackney car, say 75 per cent. of my time, and only doing 25 per cent. of my time for the society, in the ordinary way I would not be put down as an employee. If the legal definition is right, I am satisfied.

The Minister agrees, even if it is only 10 per cent.?

Yes. There is no doubt in the world about it.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

I move amendment No. 4:—

Before sub-section (2) to insert a new sub-section as follows:—

(2) Where an officer or an employee of the society is appointed to a situation in the Civil Service, pursuant to the provisions of sub-section (1) of this section, he shall be appointed within a grade at least as favourable, having regard to existing rights and salary scale, as his or her existing grade in the society's service.

This would apply more to the indoor staff, though also to the outdoor staff. I do not know if the Minister is in a position to tell us to what particular grade or class in the Civil Service an agent would be appointed. With the indoor staff it does not appear to be so difficult, as I take it that, according to their present situation, they will be made writing assistants, clerical staff, staff officers or executive officers. The object of this amendment is that, when transferred, they will be put into a grade in the Civil Service that will not be less favourable, having regard to their remuneration and scale of salary and also to their "existing rights." I do not know if those rights have any legal significance. I believe that in the National Health Insurance Society a certain proportion of, say, the clerical grade would get promotion to a higher grade. If these employees are transferred to the Civil Service as clerical officers they may feel they are not in as good a position as they were in before. They may feel that, as the Civil Service is now constituted, they will remain clerical officers when they are transferred, and will not have the same chance of promotion to a higher grade that they have at the moment. It may be a difficult thing for the Minister to give them a grade in the Civil Service where the same proportion of them, roughly, would pass on to a higher grade when transferred over. This amendment is an effort to safeguard the employees of the society in that way. The Minister may be in sympathy with what I have proposed—Deputy Lehane has a very similar amendment—and, if so, he might be in a position to draft an amendment which would be more in keeping with the ordinary drafting of Bills of this kind, and at the same time give the safeguards to the members of the society that we are trying to give them here.

In reply to Deputy Ryan, I thought when he commenced to speak that he was going to clarify a point that was giving me trouble in his amendment No. 4. I would be in complete sympathy with him in regard to this amendment were it not for the very point to which he adverted, "existing rights". I see considerable difficulty there. I think I would be on stronger ground in urging the Minister to accept the succeeding amendment. There would be considerable difficulty in defining existing rights. I do not know whether Deputy Dr. Ryan would agree with me or not, but I think it would mean that, in fact, you would create a service within a service, if regard were to be had to the hypothetical promotion that might have accrued to a man had the society remained in existence. That would be creating a favoured class within the Department of Social Welfare and I could see grave difficulties arising from the Civil Service angle were that the case. I thought that Deputy Dr. Ryan was going to remove my doubts. I would suggest that "existing rights" only complicates the position and weakens the good case that can be made for the general principle contained in this amendment and in the succeeding one.

I agree with Deputy Lehane that it creates a big difficulty for any Minister to ask him to have regard to existing rights. I do not say that they must be put into a grade where automatically one of three or four must go on to a higher grade than clerical as vacancies occur. There are not very many of those. All we can ask the Minister is that he should be fair and reasonable with the staff and keep these existing rights in mind. When he is putting them into a grade such as clerical officer, perhaps he can only give them an assurance that there will be promotion to the staff officer grade, which would probably correspond with the supervisor grade they have in the society. I would like to hear what the Minister has to say about it before we go any further.

There is an unspecified type of officer that neither Deputy Ryan nor Deputy Lehane referred to. I suppose the Minister has given it some consideration. It is the type of officer of the existing society who was a full-time agent in the City of Dublin or the county borough, but who, because of his age and because of his low salary, might find himself, when transferred, relegated to a position in the service which might be that of messenger rank. Deputy Lehane says he does not think there are any.

I did not think the salary scales were that low.

Yes. There are salary scales in the existing society such that if this man became an officer in the Civil Service, according to the interpretation of the section if neither amendment is accepted, he might find himself suffering a hardship by being put into a position which no one could say was commensurate with the status he held previously.

Who are these people?

In the City of Dublin and the county borough there are a number of what you would call full-time agents—not part-time.

What are you afraid will happen?

If the section is interpreted as it now reads, all that the State will have to do is to put them into a position from the point of view of salary and pension rights, and so forth, according to the status that they would enjoy in the service on account of the wage rate they are earning. I am afraid you would find yourself having to put these men into a grade of employment which would, in fact, be an injustice to them. The Minister could get from his officers the rates of wages of these particular officers of the society that I refer to. He should then take into account their age at the present time. Some of them are not so very long in the society. They have been appointed in comparatively recent years, although their age would be higher than the normal age for entry into the Civil Service. I would ask him, therefore, to consider either of these amendments or an amendment of his own which would protect these people against an injustice which he may not want to happen but which, on a strict interpretation of Civil Service regulations, in my opinion, would happen.

The remarks I made with reference to Deputy Dr. Ryan's amendment and the words "existing rights" were directed solely to getting the Minister to accept one or other of these two amendments. If the Minister is prepared to accept Deputy Dr. Ryan's amendment, I think it is probably preferable to mine in many ways, from the point of view of the employees, but I do see grave difficulties, not alone from the Minister's point of view, but from the point of view of the attitude of the ordinary civil servants in the Department of Social Welfare, if rights are given to the importees which would supervene and take precedence over their rights as existing civil servants— if, in other words, you were to create a service within a service. If, as Deputy Briscoe says, there are whole-time agents in the Dublin City or county area in receipt of salaries which would enable them to be degraded or down-graded, that is a matter upon which the Minister should give us an assurance. My whole desire is to get the Minister to accept an amendment which will have statutory force. My objection to "existing rights" is that it is so vague that it would be difficult to say you were giving statutory force to anything concrete.

I would like to support the arguments that have been advanced to the Minister in regard to the amendments and that were advanced on this particular point on Second Reading. I personally am satisfied that in so far as the Minister personally is concerned, it is his desire and intention that no member of this society will suffer in any way through being brought into the Civil Service, but that, in fact, the position of that particular person will be improved. I know that that is the Minister's intention and desire. The staff are perfectly satisfied that it is the Minister's intention and desire, but when this Bill passes through the Dáil and Seanad and comes for interpretation to the Department of Finance, which is the Department that governs these matters, the Minister may find that that Department may not be anxious to interpret it in the way that he would interpret it. It is to prevent the Department of Finance, at some time in the future, doing an injustice to those particular persons that we are in favour of some protection for the staffs being written into the Bill. I think the Minister will accept what I say and what the other Deputies have said in regard to that, that we desire to write into the Bill some statutory protection. It is not that we are afraid of what the Minister may do but that we are afraid of what the Department of Finance may do. The Minister, after all his years' experience in this House, knows what the Department of Finance can do.

There is, of course, the point that has been made that if things continued as they are at the moment some members of the staff could receive promotion to the highest grades of the staff, but that promotion may not come to them within the new arrangement. They will become part of a very large pool. They will be subject to all the rules and regulations relating to promotion and it may be that promotion to the higher grades in the section of the Civil Service that will be administering this Act may come from lower grades of the Civil Service who have no experience of the administration of the society or of the work the society has done or could do under its new name and under the new conditions. However, I do not think we need worry unduly on that particular point, because it seems to me that if this particular section of the Department of Social Welfare is to be properly administered, naturally, the higher grades in the section will be filled by promotion from the lower grades of the section.

Then, of course, there is this other point, that the Minister may say that not only will these persons have the opportunity for promotion in the limited section that they have at the moment but that they will have opportunities for promotion in a much wider sphere. That is an argument against the point I have just been making. I desire to support the principle involved in either of these two amendments. I would be agreeable, as are the other members, to accept the Minister's own amendment for the purpose of protecting these staffs against what might conceivably happen should their case come to be considered by the Department of Finance.

I have a good deal of sympathy with the points made by the Deputies on this amendment. I thought I had given such an assurance as would reasonably be accepted when we were discussing the matter on the Second Stage. I would like Deputies to help me in their approach to this Bill by not looking for something which, in fact, is no better than I am offering.

I propose to take over the entire staff of the society. Nobody will be dismissed. Nobody will be redundant. The staff will be taken over in toto. This is a new approach to a very difficult problem, but I recognise that I am dealing with human beings who have human rights and human feelings and who are entitled to be dealt with accordingly. Nobody will lose by being transferred from the society to the Department. That assurance is now going on the records of this House. It is a statement made by me in a ministerial capacity as Minister responsible for the administration of the Department of Social Welfare.

Where one has a clerical staff to deal with, such as the staff in the head office of the society, I propose to integrate that staff into the nearest comparable grade in the Civil Service. For instance, where there is an officer in a grade with a scale running from £170 to £430 per annum at present, the nearest appropriate Civil Service grade seems to be that in which the scale runs from £185 to £470, making an increase of £15 at the minimum and £40 at the maximum per year. I propose to telescope the clerical staff of the society into the appropriate Civil Service grade. When they are so integrated they will then be recognised civil servants. They will then be part and parcel of the Civil Service. They will then have all the rights that civil servants have and they will have a staff organisation to protect them if at any time anybody tries to worsen their conditions. Over and above their right to have their own organisation and over and above their right to the full benefit of the conciliation and negotiation machinery now in operation in the Civil Service, they will also have the right to go before the Arbitration Tribunal where their case will be adjudicated upon and the verdict of that tribunal will be accepted by the Government, subject to the overriding authority of the Oireachtas.

These people will be in the position that they will be civil servants. Their destiny will be cast in the Civil Service. Their rights will be the rights of every member of their grade. They will have an organisation to protect them and they must think of their destiny as members of a grade in the Civil Service. May I put this to Deputy Dr. Ryan, with his background of ministerial experience: is it wise in the Civil Service, or even in a Department of it, to create a special class of at most a couple of hundred people and give them statutory rights which are not given to existing civil servants, although those existing civil servants may have upwards of 30 years' service? Here the amendment, if carried, would impose upon me an obligation to give to persons who are not at the moment civil servants, after one day's service in the Civil Service certain statutory rights which existing civil servants with 30 years' service have not got. Looking at this matter objectively, is it not clear that it would be highly undesirable to create such a small class as this in the existing Civil Service? These people do not number more than 300; the Civil Service runs to something in the region of 30,000.

These proposed rights could never be enforced. It is useless to put them in a Bill of this kind. Instead of offering these people something that is illusory, I am offering them instead something in which they will not have to interpret the letter of the law with all the concomitant possibilities of misconstruction, argument and dubiety and, in the last analysis, the possibility of having to take a chance as to what the ultimate legal interpretation will be in the courts. I offer them instead something they can feel and sense and value. I offer them a definite assurance that their conditions will not be worsened and that they will be integrated into existing Civil Service grades.

These people are not being transferred into a bankrupt undertaking. They are not being transferred to an employer with a reputation for a high degree of rascality in his approach to wages and conditions of employment. They are being transferred to the service of this Parliament and to the service of this or any subsequent Government. There is always this floor and these benches to raise a question if at any time the assurance I am now giving is not honoured, either by me or by my successor, whoever he may be. I am giving this assurance not merely in the letter, but also in the spirit. I do not want to see their conditions worsened. I shall do everything in my power to ensure that they will not be worsened. I want to give them a fair deal. I want them to look upon this as a step in the implementation of this scheme. That is the major consideration for me in this matter. I want them to pull together and work together to ensure the efficient administration of the scheme. I deplore any attempt to set up here and there little "cells" of people with special rights over and above their own colleagues in the same class.

If I were one of these people myself I would take the assurance I am offering much more enthusiastically than a cold assurance contained in a printed amendment which, even if passed, might not safeguard their rights, conditions and salaries to the same extent as I offer to safeguard them in the assurance I am giving now. In principle there is nothing between us on this matter. We want to ensure that these people will get a fair deal. They will get that from me. I hope they will get it from my successor. If my successor is likely to come from the Fianna Fáil Party, then you can take over and you can say now that you do not want to worsen their conditions either. In that way they will have something far more valuable than an amendment such as that suggested here. They should accept that assurance. It is given freely by me. If at any time while I am in the Department they are not getting either the spirit or the letter of my assurance, I shall be only too glad to deal with the specific case.

What about my case?

I do not know the individual concerned. I do not know any of them as a matter of fact. What happens with regard to the aged will be the same as what happens with their equivalent numbers in the Civil Service. The assurance of fair treatment extends to every one of them. I want to make sure that they will all get a fair deal. I shall set the Deputy's mind at rest by telling him—I do not know the case he has in mind and I do not know to what grade the particular person will be assimilated—that in the long run they will get no less favourable treatment than they are getting to-day.

I think most Deputies will sympathise with the Minister's problem in this respect, but there are a couple of specific aspects of the problem to which the Minister has not alluded. As the Minister is aware, in the Civil Service there are two or three promotion bars. The clerical grade is one particular section. Then comes the executive grade and next the administrative grade. In order to get into the clerical grade in the Civil Service, one has to pass an examination initially. If a clerical officer in the Civil Service wishes to be promoted to junior executive grade, he must, in almost every case, sit for an examination before a certain age. The student leaving school can do an examination for the executive grade at something like an upper age limit of 20 or 21, whereas the clerical officer has an extension of the upper age limit in his favour to about 25. Further, there are limited competitions within the Civil Service for clerical officers of all ages. These competitions are run in two heats. The first heat is run within the Department itself. Be it the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Industry and Commerce or the Department of Social Welfare, all eligible clerical officers who wish to go forward are interviewed by the senior officers of their own Departments and about 10 per cent. of these are selected to go forward for the second or final heat. They go forward with the selected clerical officers of the other Departments and a very small percentage of the applicants in the final heat are selected for promotion to the junior executive grade.

The position at present as regards promotion within the society is that young men start as cadets, and I understand they have a clear right to promotion to the clerical grade. After that their promotion depends on their ability if satisfactory in the service. There is no promotion bar whatever within the society. That is a particular aspect of the problem on which I should like some clarification from the Minister. I agree that it is undesirable to create a favoured class within the Civil Service as a whole, but take, for example, a man who is being transferred from the society to the Civil Service at the maximum salary scale of a clerical officer. I take it he would become a clerical officer. If that man in the society waited or if the transfer were delayed for, say, a year, his salary scale might have brought him to the commencing salary scale of the junior executive grade. Therefore, there is some hardship on that man, who is on the higher salary scale of a clerical officer in the National Health Society inasmuch as once he goes into the Civil Service his promotion does not become automatic or dependent on ability; he must go through the hazards of an examination, whether it be limited or otherwise.

Another problem that I foresee in the matter of cadets in the society is that I think their initial salary scale is lower than the initial salary scale for clerical officers. The next lowest grade in the Civil Service is that of writing assistant. Will cadets in the society become writing assistants in the Civil Service if the salary scale corresponds to that rank or will they become clerical officers? I should like some clarification on these two points.

The Deputy can hardly expect me to sort out the entire staff of the society into their appropriate grades or to deal with the internal organisation of the society. The position at the moment is that every member of the clerical staff of the society will be taken over into the Department and they will have no less salary than they have at the moment. They are on a scale at the moment and they will be integrated to the appropriate Civil Service grade. That will not involve any reduction in their existing pay or any reduction in their existing maximum, if they have not yet attained the maximum. There is a broad pattern which covers as comprehensively as I can the problems or doubts that I imagine beset the Deputy's mind. It is clamped all the time with the assurance that their conditions will not be worsened. I have approached this problem, I think, in a very generous way. I have not trimmed my sails, and I think the Deputy might accept my assurance as to the treatment that will be accorded these people.

Could the Minister give any idea to the House, if this Bill it passed within, say, the next fortnight, when the appointed day will be?

I should like to make it as soon as possible. At the moment the officers of my Department are actively engaged in the preparation of the heads of the new comprehensive social security scheme. I want to get this society into the Department with the utmost expedition in order that, having got it in, we can go ahead to build up the administrative machine to take the impact of the new Act, probably within a couple of months.

I should like to say to the Minister, that I quite accept that he is doing everything possible to safeguard the position of these people, but let it be credited to the various speakers on our side that that is their interest also. We may differ slightly, however, as to the form that assurance or safeguard should take. The Minister said that I wanted to make a privileged class inside the Civil Service. I do not indeed; that is a thing I should like to avoid, because I quite see that if we make a privileged class inside, there may be certain resentment from the civil servants there already. Our only object is to see that these employees of the society are taken into the Civil Service at least on as favourable a basis as they enjoy at the moment in the society. We all, including the Minister, appear to be aiming at that. The only thing on which we differ from the Minister at the moment is whether the clause is sufficiently clear and specific. So far as the section goes it says only that every officer and employee of the society will be appointed to a situation in the Civil Service. It does not say more. I can quite understand the Minister saying that the only way to deal with this is to meet these officers and give them an assurance that they will not be badly treated and then to follow that up when the time comes by seeing that every single employee in the society is appointed to a grade in the Civil Service that will at least leave him as well off as he was before. However, we naturally, like every Opposition in every Parliament, are anxious to have something put down in black and white in the Bill which would give these people the position they are looking for.

The point was mentioned by Deputy Cowan to the effect that a person going into the society always had a chance of going to the top but the clerical staff of the society who go as clerical officers into the Civil Service will have a very poor chance of going any higher. We are not pressing the Minister to make it possible for one of those clerical officers to become secretary of the Department when the vacancy arises. We must keep in mind existing rights as distinct from the existing prospects, let us say, that these people have, and I am afraid that in legislation we cannot cover these prospects adequately, but we should at least keep them in mind when placing them in whatever grade they will be placed in the Civil Service.

I quite agree that the assurance of the Minister is very important. As he said, it will be on the records of the House; it will always be there to be quoted by the officers and employees of this society when they are transferred. At the same time, I think Deputy Cowan is right when he says that when it comes to a matter of dealing with these employees and officers, the Department of Finance will have the determining position and they will not pay very much regard to the Minister's assurance if it does not suit them. They will say: "The Act says so-and-so." From that point of view, the Minister should try to meet us.

I do not claim that my amendment is drafted in, perhaps, a very legal or presentable form for inclusion in a Bill, but if it were accepted in principle, or if Deputy Lehane's amendment, which is slightly different from mine, were accepted in principle, and the Minister said he would like to have it redrafted, I would be quite satisfied. He should meet us by having his assurance inserted in the Bill so that these employees and officers of the National Health Society will feel more sure of the position before they are transferred.

The Minister's assurance on this matter is certainly very important but, from my experience in this House, there have been a few occasions on which we have discovered that the law as interpreted in the Civil Service —mainly in the Department of Finance —was not at all what we thought it was when we were putting it through this House. In view of that, the Minister should have no objection to embodying in this Bill some clause that will meet the views expressed here in these amendments so that none of those people who are to be transferred will suffer in their salaries or their privileges. Probably, in spite of anything that could be done, they will suffer in the future because their prospects for promotion will not be at all the same. The least we should do— and I do not see why there should be any serious objection to it—is to put in some clause to safeguard their position. It has been the practice in transferring people from the local authorities to the Electricity Supply Board, for instance, to insert such a clause for the benefit of the people who are being transferred. The Minister should frame something to cover the points in accordance with the views expressed here.

Does the Minister anticipate there will be much redundancy in the staffs that will be taken over, and can he give any guarantee as to the manner in which their rights will operate?

I stated that I propose to take over the entire staff of the society. In so far as redundancy is concerned, it will not affect the staff. They will continue in the employment of the Department and it is my responsibility to provide work for them if they should become redundant. It will not affect their pay or the frequency with which they get their pay; they will be covered against all these dangers.

I would like to put a specific case to the Minister. Take the case of a national health agent down the country who lives in a certain district and operates over the same area as your present social welfare officer— I think he is described generally as an investigation officer. Where it is found that one of these is able for the combined duties it may happen that the Department will ask the national health agent to move elsewhere, and that may not suit. In such a case, what are the rights of the agent?

What happens in that case is that the national health agent does an entirely different kind of work. The social welfare officer will continue to cover the whole range of schemes administered by the Department, while the agent may be confined to a limited portion of that work. The fact that the agent is there will not imperil the existence of the social welfare officer, nor will the social welfare officer affect the agent. You cannot amalgamate the duties because there is an enormous dissimilarity in the scales of pay. Again, one will not be able to do the work of the other.

Will there be any improvement in the conditions of the local agent?

Nobody's conditions will be worsened—I have already said that, possibly when the Deputy was not here.

I have listened to the Minister in order to try to get a clear picture. The Minister intends to take over every officer of the society and he has given the House the assurance that their terms of service will not be worsened. He refers to the officers as "staff" and he mentions some 300 are involved. That is what is disturbing me.

I said that there are approximately 300 indoor staff and 300 agents.

That means 600 altogether?

I said that already a couple of times.

I understood from the Minister that he would take over the staff and he referred to the inadvisability of setting up within the service special privileges for a small group of 200 or 300. I want it made quite clear that he means to take over the existing indoor staff, the outdoor staff and the temporary part-time officers of the society; I want an assurance that they are all included in his comprehensive take-over and his comprehensive promise that there will be no exceptions made.

No exceptions whatsoever.

I think there is a great deal of substance in what has been said as to the value of the assurance the Minister is giving. The Minister is well aware that he has not the final word in this matter; he has not, in fact, general control over the Civil Service. He cannot promote a man in his own Department without getting the consent of the Minister for Finance and he cannot determine the conditions of any of the officers of his Department without the sanction of the Minister for Finance. So far as there is going to be any guarantee that these people will carry over with them into the Civil Service the rights which they now enjoy, that guarantee can only be given, not by the assurance of any Minister, not even the Minister for Finance, but by writing it into the Bill.

If there were, as there might quite easily be, a change in the Department of Social Welfare, if the Tánaiste were to be promoted to a better place or if the people thought that his services might be more usefully employed outside this House, what he has said here to-day would not be worth the paper on which it will be printed in the Official Report. It would not bind anyone. It is of no value whatever to the people whose future is involved in what the Minister proposes to do in this Bill.

We have heard that the existing members of the staff can rise therein from subordinate posts in the service of the National Health Insurance Society to almost the very top. I think, in fact, some of the existing higher personnel have risen in that way. Now, it is quite absurd, and the Minister knows it is absurd, to hold out any hope to those people that they are going to enjoy that right when they enter the Civil Service. But the Minister can do this. He can have regard to the fact that they are going to be deprived of those prospects, and he can, by giving them better salary scales, compensate them for what he is depriving them of. He will not do that, and he will not be able to do that, unless this House by legislation gives him a definite direction that he must have regard to what those people are losing as well as what he thinks they are going to gain by entering the Civil Service. I am quite certain that the Minister wants to be fair and just, and I am quite sure that the assurances which he has given have been given sincerely; but I would ask him, as a man who has a long experience of the House and now almost three years as a Minister of State, to have regard to what he himself must know. He must know that he cannot promote an officer in his Department, and that he cannot appoint an officer to his Department unless it has the sanction of the Minister for Finance: that he cannot alter salary scales or any of the conditions of service appertaining to any officer or grade in his Department without the sanction of the Minister for Finance, and that, so far as the general Civil Service is concerned, it is the Minister for Finance who is responsible for its administration and for determining and laying down the conditions under which its officers are going to serve. Therefore, I say that the Minister, having given those assurances in all sincerity, ought to take the ordinary elementary precaution of seeing that he will be in a position to implement them. He cannot do that, and he must know that he cannot do it, unless, as I say, the law definitely lays upon him the obligation to do so.

I hope that Deputy MacEntee will not set this pace for the discussions on the Bill. It seems to me that he is on mischief bent this evening.

Is it mischief making to ask the Tánaiste to take steps to see that his pledges will be kept?

I am quite satisfied that the assurances which I have given to the House in the name of the Government will be honoured. The only danger I can see of their being repudiated or not being kept is if Deputy MacEntee should ever happen to have any responsibility for the economic destiny of the people affected by this Bill. There is no question whatever of a worsening of conditions of this transferred staff. Deputy MacEntee ought to stop his mischief making contributions on this Bill—his endeavour to upset the staff by trying to convince them by his perverted words that their conditions in the future are going to be in any way worsened. I do not know why it should be raised here that the staff in question will not have good opportunities for promotion in the future. Not alone will they be bringing into the Department of Social Welfare all the higher vacancies which exist at the moment but they will be coming into a large Department where there are a considerable number of high posts. They are coming into a Department where all the evidence is that it will be an expanding one. Why it should be suggested that the staff of the National Health Insurance Society are such an inferior variety that they will not have a chance of getting some promotions, and a fair share of the promotions that are going in an expanding Department, I do not know. I rate their intelligence much higher than that.

I am quite satisfied, from what I know of the set-up of the National Health Insurance Society, that many of the staff there will have very good chances of promotion in the Department to which they will be transferred. Why, at this stage, raise doubts in their minds which are not supported by facts, I do not know. Of course, Deputy MacEntee wants to be mischievous about this. So far as the staff are concerned, they can take this from me, that they will have all the prospects of promotion in the Department in which they are being graded, appropriately with the other grades in the Department; their salaries will not be worsened and their conditions will not be worsened. Their lot will be cast with the lot of the other members of the grade to which they are assigned. They will have staff organisations to make a case for them; they will have negotiation arrangements, conciliation arrangements and an independent arbitration tribunal at the end of all that. Could anything be more reasonable in the matter of taking in a staff of that kind not, as I have said, to a bankrupt concern but into the service of the entire State?

I do not think there is any ground whatever for these fears. Certainly, the fears of Deputy MacEntee in the matter are not shared by the unions which cater for these people, and are not shared even by the staff themselves. They know perfectly well that they will get a fair and a square deal, and that they are being given an opportunity for promotion in the Department. I think that I have gone to the limit of reason in giving the assurances which I gave to-day. I do not take the doubting view that Deputy MacEntee does that a Minister's assurance in this House does not mean something. The assurances which I am giving to a staff that is being transferred to a Civil Service Department should, I think, bind my successor to approach this matter reasonably, just as I would regard them as binding me if given by any other Minister to a staff, to whom this is, as it were, the moral basis of a contract. If we want to play politics on this we can do that, but I have gone as far as anyone could reasonably go.

I have dealt with the whole matter in a sympathetic way, recognising that I was dealing with human beings. I think it would be highly undesirable, both for the officers themselves and for the Civil Service, if we were to create within the Civil Service a tiny little cell of people who imagined that they had got security by an amendment of this kind. The more they can think of themselves as one with their colleagues, the better for themselves. The greater sense of oneness they develop with their colleagues of the same grade the better, and the sooner they learn to think of one grade and of getting the whole grade to advance and improve itself the better for themselves.

It is undesirable that we should create a special class in the Civil Service and give it rights against 30,000 other civil servants, give it rights which civil servants of 30 years' service are not getting. I think any reasonable person will say that this matter is being met in a broadminded and understanding way. I say that the staff of the National Health Insurance Society can trust the promise made here to-day will be honoured both by me and by the Government.

I must protest against the attitude of the Tánaiste regarding myself personally and regarding the merits of this proposal. I support Deputy Ryan's amendment because I know something about the Civil Service. I know something about the manner in which it is administered and I know what can happen. I have seen it happen by an Act of this Oireachtas passed at the instance of some of the Minister's colleagues. I have seen men and women deprived of their posts in the Civil Service because they did not accept a test that was not a condition of service when they entered. I am not going to allow any of the Minister's cheap jibes to deter me from advocating what I believe to be just and right.

The Minister has talked about sympathy. A little practical application of this great well of the milk of human kindness that is bubbling up in his heart in the form of a properly drafted amendment to the section would go much further to reassure the people who naturally are afraid that their future will be jeopardised than any of the soft talk in which the Minister has indulged.

Let us examine some of the arguments which the Minister has advanced against the amendment. He has said that it wants to create a cell in the Civil Service. There is no question of creating a cell in the Civil Service or creating a specially privileged class in the Civil Service. Perhaps the Minister has not read the amendment and perhaps therefore I should read it, since he is too indolent to try to read it and understand it for himself.

"Where an officer or an employee of the society is appointed to a situation in the Civil Service, ... he shall be appointed within a grade at least as favourable, having regard to existing rights and salary scale, as his or her existing grade in the society's service."

This operates once and once only. It operates at the date upon which an officer of the society is taken into the service of the State and the moment he is taken into the service of the State— in accordance, we hope, with the provisions of this amendment—he ceases to be any more than a part of the general body. He is not a separate cell enjoying, as the Minister tried to suggest, special privileges that demarcate him from all his colleagues around him. He is in a grade; he enjoys the salary and conditions of service of the grade to which he is appointed no more and no less—that is what we are contending for—than any other member of that grade. In so far as the Minister has reasoned that the amendment would create a privileged class in the Civil Service he has no justification whatsoever.

Let us examine this from another point of view. The Minister says that when these officers and employees of the society enter the Civil Service they will have reserved to them—that is what the Minister said—exactly the same opportunities for promotion as those which they now enjoy.

I said no such thing.

He did not say that and I am glad that he has admitted he did not say that because that is one of the things which they are losing. The Minister said, however, that they are going to be no worse off, that their position will not be worsened in any way. He will not deny that he said that. That is the assurance he gave the House, but Deputy Ryan has pointed out that these officers and employees do enjoy peculiar rights and peculiar opportunities of promotion and that they are going to lose them. All that is asked by the amendment is that when these officers, who are going to lose the opportunities which they at present enjoy, are taken into the Civil Service regard will be had to the fact that they are losing those opportunities in determining the grade to which they will be appointed. That is what we have asked.

As the Minister himself admitted these officers at the present moment do enjoy these special opportunities for promotion. They will be brought into the Civil Service not as members of a departmental grade but as members of the general service grades. What does that mean? If a man is a member of a departmental grade he enjoys rights and opportunities in relation to promotion in priority over members of the general service grade.

The officers of the National Health Insurance Society as matters stand at present enjoy those rights in the same way as members of a departmental grade would, but once an officer of the National Health Insurance Society becomes absorbed in the general service grade these special rights and priorities with regard to promotion and special types of duty immediately disappear and, far from continuing to retain and enjoy the rights and opportunities for promotion which they now have, the officers and employees of the National Health Insurance Society will find that those rights and opportunities will be very severely restricted and diminished. The moment it becomes necessary to appoint on promotion a number of persons to one of the general service classes to discharge duties which would be analogous to those discharged at the present moment by grades in the National Health Insurance Society you will find that every general service officer in every State Department will want to be allowed to go for those vacancies on exactly the same terms as, upon no less favoured terms than, the officers and employees of the society who may be transferred to the Department of Social Welfare. That is the position.

I told people who have come to me on this matter and who are uneasy— they are uneasy about their future— about what is going to happen as far as their present opportunities for promotion are concerned, that in my view once they enter the general service grade in the Civil Service they have got to take their chance with the rest. Once they are in they stand on exactly the same plane as every other member of the Civil Service and it is not practicable that they should stand on any different plane. We do not want to make them a special cell, as the Minister said, nor do they want to be a special cell, but we do say that when they are coming into the service for the first time regard should be had to the fact that their conditions will be worsened in that particular respect—I do not suggest they will be worsened generally—when we are determining the grade to which they will be appointed and the salary scale which that grade will carry.

That is what we are asking to do in the amendment. It is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. However glad they may be to enter the Civil Service, the National Health Insurance Society is not being taken over by the Minister at the instance of these people; he is taking it over for reasons of his own, reasons of State, let us say; in fact, to be quite candid, I think for reasons of political expediency. But however it may be, he is not taking it over at the instance of these people. He is taking it over for his own profit—not his own personal profit—in the sense that he, as Minister, is a public corporation sole and entire. He is going to take over these funds and this staff and I think he is bound, in equity, when doing that, at least to compensate the people for anything they may be losing. That is all we are asking him to do. We are asking him to accept this amendment in order that, if he does give this guarantee that he is prepared to do it, he will be able to implement that guarantee. I do not see that there is anything unreasonable in that and I hope that, when a case is put in the calm, reasoned and logical manner in which I have put it, the Minister will on this occasion treat the matter seriously. He has told us that the officers and employees of the National Health Insurance Society are intelligent people, but he ought to have remembered that when he was last on his feet because they could see through him as well as I could.

The Minister repeated on the last occasion on which he spoke that we were seeking to make a privileged class of these officers. I cannot see how the Minister can argue that, because, as Deputy MacEntee has said, we are seeking only that they shall enter the Civil Service in what might be regarded as a just and proper grade. Once in, they are civil servants like any of the others and I do not see that they are a privileged class. As a matter of fact, in his argument, the Minister spoke of putting them into the Civil Service on a just and proper grade and he does not accuse himself of making them a privileged class. Why then should he accuse us of seeking to do so? It is not our intention. Assurances from the Minister are very good, but I must say that in all the many years I was a Minister, when I brought in many Bills in which employees were concerned, I was never let away with assurances. The Opposition, and, in particular, the Opposition led by Deputy Norton at the time, were never prepared to accept assurances. They always insisted that a clause should go into the Bill, and, so far as I remember, that was done. I remember arguing very strongly on one occasion that assurances were quite sufficient and Deputy Norton at the time was gracious enough to say that he believed I was sincere and genuine in what I promised but he added that he wanted it in the Bill. We are in the same position. We believe that the Minister is sincere in the assurances he gives, but we still believe that a clause should go into the Bill, because, as we have argued already, when it comes to be interpreted by the Department of Finance, they will rely on what is written into the Bill.

The Minister also spoke about the chances these people have of making their case known. They will have their own organisation and he has undertaken to have their arguments or grievances considered, and he went on to say that there will be a tribunal to which they can appeal. On what will they appeal to that tribunal? The tribunal, again, will be tied to the Bill if there is any appeal to them, and if there is nothing in the Bill except the simple words we have here as to appointment to the Civil Service, the tribunal will say: "You have been appointed to the Civil Service and we cannot do anything more for you." If they want to argue that they have been appointed to the Civil Service in a grade inferior to that to which they should have been appointed, having regard to their position in the society, I do not see what the tribunal can do for them. If there is to be nothing in the Bill on the lines of the clause proposed in my amendment and Deputy Lehane's amendment, I think we should leave the tribunal out of it.

I do not think it is fair for the Minister to accuse this side of a political manæuvre, as I think he said. It is all very well to use such tactics when you have no other argument to meet the case put up. It is a nice answer to make that the Opposition are playing politics, but it does not answer the arguments put up. The Minister may not be able to answer them and, in those circumstances, it may be a good reply. It is quite a common thing for Ministers of this Government to answer the Opposition by saying that the Opposition wants to create sabotage. I do not want to create discontent amongst the staff of the National Health Insurance Society. We should make them quite content in going into the Civil Service and that was our object in putting down this amendment, as I am sure it was Deputy Lehane's object in putting down his amendment—that we should take them over as a contented staff and not try to create discontent amongst them, as we are accused of seeking to do by the Minister.

The Opposition in any Parliament has a duty to perform and it is a duty which I think the Opposition in this Parliament always performed irrespective of what Government was in power. I know that, when we brought in Bills dealing with the taking over of concerns where staffs were involved, we were always watched very closely by the Opposition. The various clauses were examined very carefully and amendments were proposed by the Opposition to safeguard the staffs in all these cases. I think that is a proper function for an Opposition, because there is always the fear that the Government are anxious to take over concerns of this kind in order to get on with the work, and, in their anxiety to take the concerns over, may overlook the just claims of the staff. It is up to the Opposition to see that the conditions of that staff are not worsened in any way. It is a very serious thing when you take over a concern of this kind to worsen in any way the prospects of the staff. I know that in the case of a junior clerical officer, he can be told: "You were only 20 years of age going into this society and you hoped some day to get to the very top as secretary. When you go into the Civil Service, it may be impossible to arrange that for you." You could also say to that officer that by industry and so on, by taking the necessary examinations to get over the barriers in the Civil Service, he could do it, but we should keep in mind that they had these prospects and these possibilities in the society when arranging the grade into which they may go.

I want to make this plain: we are not advocating a privileged class. We are merely arguing that they should enter the Civil Service on a grade which will be fair, because, once in, they become civil servants and I do not think we can do any more for them.

That will be done.

That is what the Minister says and I am quite sure the Minister is sincere and honest, but we are arguing that it be put into the Bill. That is the only thing between us. I do not think any of us has accused the other of being insincere in seeking to ensure that this is done properly but we differ with regard to the means. The Minister says his assurance is sufficient; we say it should be written into the Bill. We differ on the means, as I say, and if we cannot settle it any other way, we can only settle it in the division lobbies.

I think Deputy Dr. Ryan admitted when we started the discussion on this amendment that the terms of the amendment tabled by him might be too nebulous and too vague for him to feel justified in pressing it on the Minister and I understood him to say that, were the Minister to suggest that he would introduce an amendment in his own terms, he would be prepared to accept it. I gather from his last remarks that he rather departed from that position.

I should like to make this point. It is impossible, without the creation of a privileged class, to write the amendment in the terms tabled by Deputy Dr. Ryan into the Bill. I am sorry that the amendment is framed as it is, because I feel there would be a much greater possibility of doing service to the staff and achieving for the staff what I think we all agree we want to achieve for them, were Deputy Dr. Ryan's amendment not presented in its present form. Were the Minister confronted with the succeeding amendment which stands in my name, I think he would at least be prepared to say that he would bring in some amendment, if he could not accept that amendment, which would cover that general position.

Of course the Minister is a superb tactician in this matter and I never saw him display it to better advantage than he did this evening, because, apprehensive that there might be on this side of the House some people like myself who would be overborne by Deputy Dr. Ryan's reasonableness, the Minister conjured Deputy MacEntee out of the vasty depths and made it impossible for anybody on this side of the House to support the amendment.

I am always amused when I hear legal gentlemen arguing for or against certain things. I have witnessed the amazing acrobatics of one legal gentleman arguing first for an amendment, then referring to his own amendment, and winding up by proving that he was against the amendment.

I said at all times that it was too vague.

There is nothing vague about what I am going to say. It will be on record and perhaps the Deputy will consider later whether he has taken the right action or not. This amendment asks only that the existing rights and salaries shall be taken into account at the point of entry. If the Deputy will read the amendment and see how the commas are placed, he will see that that is all the amendment asks. All his acrobatics will not convince anybody that he is sincere if he does not recognise that.

That is not a correct intrepretation of the amendment.

It is a layman's interpretation and the interpretation that we in this House are putting on it.

How do you propose to take them into account?

By adding up what they will lose after they have gone in.

Mr. Lehane

The amendment does not say that.

It does say that. The Deputy is withdrawing his own amendment and is not going to support this amendment.

I said at all stages that I would not support this amendment for the reasons I outlined. There are no acrobatics in that.

Let us hear Deputy Briscoe.

Deputy Lehane, after the introduction of this amendment, argued that he was more in favour of this amendment than he was of his own. He agreed with Deputy Dr. Ryan that a better phraseology could be adopted to cover both. He also agreed with the suggestion of Deputy Dr. Ryan that, if the Minister would indicate his acceptance of the principle embodied in either or both, it would suit him also. Now he does not want it.

On a point of order. Is it in order for the Deputy to misquote me, whether deliberately or not?

I am entitled to refer to what some other Deputy has said.

Surely the Deputy is not entitled to put into my mouth words which I did not use?

A point of order has been put to me. It is impossible for the Chair to recollect what every Deputy says or to know whether there is a misquotation. It is equally impossible to know whether it is deliberate or accidental.

Surely Deputy Lehane's word will be taken by Deputy Briscoe.

Deputy O'Higgins has arrived—another lawyer.

I have been listening impatiently for some time.

Let us come back to the amendment.

I want to try to get the Minister to understand what is in our minds over here. As I understand Deputy Dr. Ryan's amendment, we are taking into the service of the State a group of people. As there is going to be a difference between their future employment and their former employment, with particular reference to possibilities of promotion and to certain salary arrangements, we are anxious that a certain accounting should be made as to what their prospects would be by putting them into a certain grade on their entry into the service of the State where, from then on, they would carry on exactly as the rest of the State servants do. Deputy Lehane says that he does not see that in the amendment. I take it that he agrees that what I am saying is what should be in the amendment.

I agree that it would be a very desirable thing to do if it were possible so to frame an amendment without creating a special cell within the Civil Service.

It is not unknown that amendments have been moved by members of the Opposition or by Indepenents which suggested a certain principle and, when the principle had been accepted by the House, it was found that the wording of the amendment would not have the effect intended. It was always agreed in such a case that the amendment should be withdrawn and sent to the draftsman to redraft it for adoption on the Report Stage, the principle having been accepted by the Minister. If we are all in agreement with the principle that has been argued, why does the Minister say: "I have given you the assurances as far as I am personally concerned and I intend to see them carried out"? We know that any assurance given by a Minister, unless it is specifically embodied in the Bill, is of no value whatever when interpreted outside the House. We have had Acts of Parliament discussed in courts of law and we have had people reading the verbatim report of what was said in the House and the judge saying: "This is what is in the Act." Deputy Lehane will not deny that. I do not doubt that the Minister means what he says. Everybody has been gracious enough to accept that as far as he is concerned. If he is in agreement with the principle—if Deputy Lehane is in agreement with the principle—then let us get from him an undertaking that if either or both of these amendments are withdrawn he will, on the Report Stage, have drafted and put on the Order Paper for the consideration of the House an amendment which will bring about what we are asking should be done here. Unless that undertaking is given by the Minister we say that we have no alternative but to press the amendment. We know that an injustice could happen— might happen—particularly when it comes to the consideration of the service of these people afterwards. I would strongly urge the Minister to accept the request and recognise that what we are saying is, in fact, correct.

Deputy Dr. Ryan pointed out that when the Fianna Fáil Government brought in legislation, which affected the employment of people being taken into the service, the present Minister who was then Deputy Norton, the Leader of the Labour Party, demanded and had inscribed in the Bill which was then in question exactly what he wanted as regards protection of the persons whose employment was being affected by a change of control.

Will the Deputy quote the case?

I said that Deputy Dr. Ryan referred to it.

He did not give a single instance.

No, but he made a general submission. When he was here the Minister did not ask him to quote the case.

Did the then Minister accede to the request?

Did he say he acceded to it when the request was made?

Deputy Dr. Ryan is here now.

Perhaps he will be allowed to intervene and quote the case?

When speaking a short while ago, Deputy Dr. Ryan said that when he, as Minister, introduced certain legislation on behlaf of the Department of Agriculture the present Minister who was then Deputy Norton, Leader of the Labour Party, was not satisfied to accept the assurances on the part of the Minister and insisted on having inscribed in the Act the protection which he considered these employees who were being taken over from other employment should have. Now the Minister asks me to quote the instance. I cannot. I have only referred to what Deputy Dr. Ryan has said. He is here now and perhaps he can amplify his statement. However, I challenge the Minister on this: he knows that unless a certain thing is specifically stated in the Bill, when it becomes an Act, all the discussion and all the assurances and all the promises given by a Minister in this House, or even by the Taoiseach, have no value in a contest in a court of law.

I know of a case which comes to my mind. I remember that when the present President of the country was Minister for Finance he introduced a measure setting up a Racing Control Board. During the discussion of that measure there was certain criticism, and doubts were expressed as to the certain rights of certain people being maintained. The then Minister gave personal assurances that, as far as he was concerned, this is what it meant and this is what he intended to see carried out. Subsequently——

Who were the certain people with certain rights? Can we get more details about these unknown warriors?

I am not talking at all about unknown warriors. I am not going into the details of their rights. I know and the present Minister knows that there was a series of deputations to the then Minister and to his successor, Deputy Aiken, to try and have certain things put right in that particular measure which turned out to be otherwise than anticipated.

What class are we dealing with?

We are dealing with the setting up of the Racing Control Board and the certain rights and certain privileges of persons affected by it, and so forth.

Who were they?

It does not matter.

What class?

All classes.

Jockeys or trainers?

No. The Racing Control Board does not——

Bookmakers?

All classes—owners, trainers, bookmakers. All the classes concerned in it.

What were they looking for?

At the time——

Tick-tack men.

That is the simile.

At the time somebody suggested that the present Minister, then Deputy Norton, had a well of feeling in his heart. I suggest now that, instead of the Minister having a well of feeling in his heart, he has only a cell of feeling. That is all he has. Having given consideration to the situation which is created and which affects a certain group of people, we want to ensure that what the Minister has said is his intention will, in fact, be carried out. If we do not succeed in carrying our point here and if it subsequently turns out that people are dissatisfied and have a grievance about it, it will end there unless an amendment is brought in either by the Minister or by somebody else. I would point out that the Minister did not say, in this connection, that he would introduce an amendment if, afterwards, it turned out that there were certain injustices as a result of the Act.

I referred to a particular section. The Minister in his jocular way asked: "Who is he?" A number of permanent full-time agents in the City of Dublin and in the county borough will, if they are taken in under the terms of this Bill, right from the start be taken in at a great disadvantage. Because of their age and the rights of salary which they enjoy, they will be appointed to very menial positions in the service of the State—positions not at all comparable with the status and prestige they enjoy at present, notwithstanding their low salary and their few years of service. If the Minister examines the matter he will find that I am correct, and if he has examined it and does not deal with it he knows that I am correct.

I say the Deputy is completely wrong.

Time will tell. It tells a lot of things and it will tell about that too. Let me say, in conclusion, that we are not asking for the creation of a special privileged group of people within the service. All we are asking for is that when they enter the service there will be a calculation or a recognition of what they are losing by being taken into the Civil Service and that that will be borne in mind when appointing them to grades in the Civil Service. That is what we are asking for.

It does not say that.

I say that it does. If it does not, if the principle is accepted, would the Deputy be kind enough to contribute the views of his trained legal mind and whatever wisdom he possesses towards suggesting an alteration of the amendment to make it mean whatever he says it means?

It is rather a pity that Deputy Lehane has reduced this debate, which is an attempt to preserve for people their existing rights, to a depth of petty spleen that I think this House has scarcely ever been pained to witness before. Apparently, something that I said when I was last speaking on this amendment, some argument I used in trying to press my point on the Minister, so hurt Deputy Lehane that out of fervent devotion to the Minister he is going to punish not me, because he can do nothing to me, but officers and employees of the National Health Insurance Society. Everything, according to him, was going beautifully until I intervened. I gathered from his own speech that he had already announced to the House that he regarded Deputy Dr. Ryan's amendment as a better one than his own——

The Deputy had better be careful.

——and that he was prepared to support it. That I gathered from his own speech and that impression has been confirmed by what I have heard from Deputy Briscoe and Deputy Dr. Ryan.

The Deputy was not in the House.

The record will show it.

I heard the Deputy say that and everyone else heard him say it.

It is a great pity that Deputy Lehane believes that the business of the State can be conducted according to the rules of the nursery and that if he is not prepared to listen to argument all he has to do is to try and shout it down. It is not Deputy MacEntee and the Tánaiste who are concerned in this matter. Neither the Tánaiste nor I, nor even Deputy Lehane, will be transferred to the service of the State. We are not going to become civil servants, but there are hundreds of men and women who will be transferred and it is their interests that are involved. It is their interests we are discussing and the personal idiosyncrasies of Deputy MacEntee should not be allowed to influence the votes and opinions of members of this House in relation to the particular interests of these persons. This amendment should be considered and discussed on a basis of justice and equity. We should examine the proposals in the Bill and in these two amendments in that spirit.

That is what was being done, until the Deputy irrupted into the House.

I am very sorry and if my apology to the Deputy, unwilling and distasteful as it would be to me to make it—I am sorry, I do not want this to be regarded as a laughing matter; it is not—would persuade him to reconsider his attitude and to carry out his original good intentions and vote for Deputy Dr. Ryan's amendment, he may have it, from the depths of my heart.

On a point of order, is it in order for the Deputy to state that I indicated that I would support Deputy Ryan's amendment, when in fact I did not do so but indicated that I did not think it could be supported? Is it in order for the Deputy to misrepresent so repeatedly?

The Chair has no means of deciding what any Deputy said at any particular time. The debate is conducted here on the grounds that people either understand or misunderstand what a Deputy says. The Chair has no means of correcting that.

Sir, I was not here. I therefore readily accept what Deputy Lehane has said. I only hope that the printed record will justify his statements. Let us see what the two amendments are that appear to be at issue. One is that by Deputy Dr. Ryan, which proposes:

"Where an officer or an employee of the society is appointed to a situation in the Civil Service ... he shall be appointed within a grade at least as favourable, having regard to existing rights and salary scale, as his or her existing grade in the society's service."

For some reason or other, I understand that does not appeal to Deputy Lehane and, presumably, to other members of the House. As against that, Deputy Lehane proposes:

"Where a person is appointed to a situation in the Civil Service of the Government by virtue of sub-section (1) of this section such appointment shall be to a situation in a grade not less favourable as to salary scale as such person's existing grade in the service of the society."

Now, there is a difference in phraseology. One says: "at least as favourable," the other says: "not less favourable". I suppose I would not be capable of discussing how many angels could pirouette on the point of a needle.

If the Deputy had been here—or his colleague will tell him.

What the Deputy really needs is a sleeping tablet. If I could distinguish as to the shade of meaning that divided "at least as favourable" from the phrase "not less favourable"——

The Deputy does not see anything about "existing rights"?

I think we can take it that, in regard to the particular type of grade to which they want the staff to be appointed, Deputy Lehane and Deputy Dr. Ryan are ad idem. They both want the same thing, so far as that phrase is concerned. Then Deputy Dr. Ryan's amendment goes on to say: “having regard to existing rights and salary scale,” whereas Deputy Lehane only wishes the Minister to have regard to such persons' existing grade in the service of the society. The Deputy has admitted, and servants of the society have told me, that they have special opportunities for promotion. I do not think Deputy Lehane will deny that he made that statement. If he does, I shall have to make up my mind that henceforward when he speaks I will not be able to believe my own ears. Therefore, what the Deputy proposes to do is to appoint these people to the Civil Service on a basis that will not be as favourable as that which they now enjoy in the service of the society. He is saying to the Minister: “When you bring these people into the service, the only thing I want you to consider in relation to them is their existing salary scale; so far as I am concerned, you are at full liberty to disregard any opportunities of promotion which they may possess at the moment.”

That is the difference between the two amendments. Deputy Dr. Ryan wishes to bind the Minister to have regard to the existing rights, which, of course, means the right to participate in the normal flow of promotion in the special service of the society. That is important, since when these people come into the Civil Service they are leaving the special service of the society and becoming merged in the general service grades. These opportunities for promotion which are confined to them at the moment will be thrown wide open to the thousands of their colleagues whom they will meet in the Civil Service.

We quite frankly admit that these opportunities for promotion must be open to everybody inside the service but the mere fact that the posts are going to be competed for by hundreds or thousands where, perhaps, before they may have been competed for by only a comparatively small number means that the position of the people who are entering the service now for the first time is going to be worsened. We say that, in justice, the Tánaiste, when he is appointing these people to posts in the Civil Service, should have regard to that fact. That is the difference between the stand, if you like, which we are making and that which Deputy Lehane, I think, has run away from. Apart altogether from the rather humorous and merry excuse that my turn of phrase does not appeal to him——

On the contrary, I always appreciate it.

——the Deputy has put forward this suggestion, that one of the reasons why he is against this is that it would be impracticable to operate.

There are at least two precedents to prove the contrary. I referred, when I was speaking first, to the fact that the position of one-time serving members of the Civil Service was very greatly worsened by reason of the fact that they were compelled either to take a test or make a declaration of loyalty or to leave the service. That happened in 1923. When we came into office, we decided that that wrong was going to be redressed and we passed an Act which brought these people back into the service. They had been out of the service for nine years and, therefore, the question arose, how were they going to be brought back in a position which would at least give them approximate justice, that is to say, that they would be compensated for the time they had been out of the service and for the opportunities for promotion which they had lost. We succeeded in devising a way of overcoming that problem, which is just the problem that Deputy Lehane denies is capable of solution.

It is peculiar that within the last week I got a letter from one of the people referred to.

I said there were two precedents and the Leas-Cheann Comhairle, if he were here, would bear me out in this, that the second was the position of the officers of local authorities who were similarly dismissed, who had to be brought back and reinstated and whose reinstatement presented precisely the same sort of problem as we are dealing with here. A modus operandi was found to deal with that situation. The position, therefore, is that there are at least two precedents which show that, so far from its being impracticable to give effect to Deputy Dr. Ryan's amendment, it is quite possible and quite practicable to do so. In fact, the position is very much simpler. The whole thing could be done by three men sitting down and considering the matter and finding an answer to all these queries inside of one week. That is the position.

Therefore, there is no justification for rejecting Deputy Dr. Ryan's amendment on the ground that it cannot be done, because this thing about lost opportunities and lost rights has been dealt with before and there is a procedure that has been established and which worked, on the whole, satisfactorily.

That is what we are asking. That is the sort of grace we are asking should be extended to the servants and employees of the National Health Insurance Society. Despite what Deputy Lehane said, despite what the Tánaiste or anybody else said, I do not think it it a sufficient ground for rejecting Deputy Dr. Ryan's amendment that anything I have said may have offended either the Tánaiste or Deputy Lehane. As I said at the outset, we are not the people involved. The people whose future is involved in this are the men and women of this society, some of them with long service, as Deputy Briscoe said, some of them young men and women who have entered the service of the society within the comparatively recent past. It is their future, it is their rights, that are at stake here and we should surely rise above this sort of petty Party difference when we are discussing them, and try to do justice.

This is the last point, Sir. You have been very patient. Somebody may say to me that these amendments are not necessary. That is the plea of the Tánaiste. I am an old hand at drafting Bills. I have been Minister for Finance, Minister for Industry and Commerce, Minister for Local Government and Public Health and Minister for Local Government. In those capacities I have seen this work of drafting from the two ends and I know precisely how sub-section (1) of Section 7 of this Bill came to be drafted. I am perfectly certain that, when the draft heads of this Bill were first submitted to the Department of Finance, it contained some sort of proposal upon the lines of one or other of these amendments and there was a long struggle. There was a long struggle because, naturally, the Tánaiste, like the rest of us, would realise what is being done and would try to ensure that the people who were coming into the service would be contented and would be fairly dealt with and he would have put up in the heads of the Bill a sub-section more or less on these lines. It went to the Department of Finance and there, Deputy McGilligan, the present Minister for Finance, did what I would have done as Minister. He would try to ensure that the Minister for Finance had as free a hand as possible in dealing with the Civil Service, that he was not going to be hampered or restricted in any way by convenants which would create difficulties for him with other civil servants and might appear to fetter or curtail his rights and his obligations as Minister for Finance. He has obligations to the general public which are separate and apart from those which the Minister for Social Welfare may have to the people whom he is taking over. Therefore, the Minister for Finance had this bald statement written in the Bill—that subject to such and such, where a person was, immediately before the transfer day, an officer or employee of the society, such person is hereby, notwithstanding anything contained in any other enactment—that refers to the Civil Service (Regulation) Acts—appointed to a situation in the Civil Service of the Government.

That is all it says—appointed to a situation in the Civil Service of the Government. Under that section, as it stands, a superintending officer—I think that is what they are called—a senior outdoor inspector—could be appointed to the rank of writing assistant. I do not say it would be done, but he could be appointed to the rank of writing assistant in the Civil Service and the terms of sub-section (1) of Section 7 would be complied with and he would have no remedy as this Bill stands. That is the position. I do not want to make mischief. That is the position and, since we will not, apparently, get support for our amendment, it is as well that the people involved in Section 7 should know what is at stake. Any person who is offered the most menial post in the Civil Service has no redress under this Bill. It does not matter how high his rank is in the society. If that should be done— I do not think it will be done and I do not suggest it will, because I do not think the Tánaiste or anybody else would have the hardihood to do that, or indeed the will or the desire to do it—the people affected by that act have no redress. That shows how important it is that we should have here in this statute some such proviso as Deputy Dr. Ryan has embodied in his amendment.

Deputy MacEntee is filling a rather unusual rôle this evening. He is the protector of the destinies and the economic interests of small men and small women. He appoints himself to that position notwithstanding his appallingly bad record in the matter of wages when he was a Minister in this House. I think the Deputy was the architect of the famous, or shall I say infamous, Civil Service cuts Bill of 1934, in which he smashed to smithereens people's rights and said: "Even though you have Treaty rights and statutory rights given to you by this House, I will tear them to pieces and I will slash your salaries." Deputy MacEntee was the architect of that. Can anyone believe this is the same Deputy MacEntee who appears in this hypocritical rôle to-night? He was the Cæsar of the Custom House. His writ ran through the country. Local authorities were prevented from increasing by as little as 2s. a week the wages of their workers, all under the ukase of Deputy MacEntee, Minister for Local Government. His whole policy was to keep wages down. The Wages Standstill Orders were used by him time out of number to keep the wages of the workers down. Deputy MacEntee was the architect of most of the disgraceful circulars dealing with wages and salaries. Yet, Deputy MacEntee comes into this House this evening the saviour of the small man of no wealth and no power in the National Health Insurance Society.

Quite clearly, whatever faults the Deputy has or from whatever disabilities he suffers, introspection is not one of them. If the Deputy suffered in the remotest degree from introspection, he would assume a much more modest rôle. He would certainly not appear here in the rôle of a gladiator entering the arena to fight for the National Health Insurance Society's staff. If the Deputy wishes to put the matter to the test to-morrow and engage in such frolics, if he consults the staff of the National Health Insurance Society as to whether they think they will get a better Bill from him or from me, I shall abide by the result. But when they remember Deputy MacEntee's low-wage past and his low-wage policy and the bitter and vituperative language he used to justify that policy both here and on the public platforms, they will not be misled by the Deputy's cant and humbug here to-night. These people may not hold high rank in the society, but the Deputy does his intelligence less than justice——

Would the Minister address his remarks to the amendment?

That, too, will come.

There are more people sitting on this side of the House than Deputy MacEntee who are interested in this matter.

Do not disown him.

We know there are more people sitting on the Opposition Benches than Deputy MacEntee. If Deputy MacEntee were not there, this would be a peaceful discussion and perhaps a much more progressive one.

You are not helping it.

So far as Deputy MacEntee is concerned, his pose is that of a thoroughly dishonest man because he knows perfectly well he is conjuring up dangers that every intelligent person knows do not exist and that every intelligent person knows will not be permitted to exist.

What is wrong with your writing the guarantee into your Bill as has been done in other Acts?

Will the Deputy tell me in what Acts it appears?

Would the Minister answer one question?

The Deputy can make his own speech afterwards.

You were very keen about the Electricity Supply Board employees when the Dublin Corporation people were being transferred.

This is a State Department. This is the Government of the country. This is the Parliament of the country. The Deputy wants guarantees in the Bill because he cannot apparently trust himself.

I can trust myself but I could not trust you. I could not throw you very far.

I never at any time had to ask the Deputy for a testimonial anywhere in the public life of this country.

You would not get it.

Even if you did, it would not get you very far.

The Minister is dealing with the amendment.

Whether or not the Deputy likes what I have to say, he will hear it.

I love listening to you.

It is not often the Deputy comes into the House but, when he does, he learns something. Deputy MacEntee talks about opportunities for promotion. He makes the most wild and reckless statements knowing full well that they are not true. He conjures up a situation in which the staff of the National Health Insurance Society will be transferred to the Department, graded as clerical officers and thereby lose access to posts which exist at present in the society. Let us see what are the posts in the society.

I suppose it is no use my pointing out that I did not use the phrase "graded as clerical officers"?

Graded as general service clerical officers.

I did not say that. General service grades was what I said.

Here are the facts. If you exclude clerical officers and supervising officers in the society, there are only eight departmental staff officers and five staff officers of the society. The assistant secretary and secretary need not be members of the society's staff at all. They can be outsiders. In fact, I think the first secretary was not a member of the society. Therefore, the opportunities for promotion about which Deputy MacEntee talks tot up to eight departmental staff officers and five staff officers. These are scattered over 24 supervising clericals, 49 clerical men, 134 clerical women, 74 junior clerical women and 76 clerical women. These are the 13 posts talked about by Deputy MacEntee as if this place was an El Dorado of promotion from the point of view of the clerical staff. How many people will be secretary of that society in their lifetime? How many will be assistant secretary? How many of them within the span of human life will become staff officers or departmental staff officers? It only requires a simple sum in addition to see what are the prospects of promotion in the society.

But, whatever they are, they will be preserved to the extent that the entire staff of the society will come into the Department. To that extent, the opportunities for promotion will remain because all these posts will be assimilated to the appropriate Civil Service posts. At the same time the staff of the National Health Insurance Society will have opened up to them much wider opportunities for promotion than they enjoy at present. More posts will be available to them. Far from there being any restriction on their promotion, they will in future have much wider prospects of promotion. Anybody who studies the matter knows that.

Would the Minister answer one question? Can those over 25 years of age, who come in as clerical officers, be promoted? Will they have any opportunities of promotion?

Clerical officers over 25 years of age are promoted every day of the week.

To what grade?

A variety of grades.

Be straight about it. What grade?

Minor staff officer.

They are promoted to the next grade, minor staff officer, and then to staff officer, higher executive officer, assistant principal and principal. All that is departmental promotion but Deputy MacEntee sought to give the impression that folk from other Departments will try to filch these posts from the Department of Social Welfare. That is entirely wrong. A moment's reflection would have convinced any reasonable person that it was a gross misstatement and misrepresentation of the position. I do not hope to convince Deputy MacEntee. I have long since given up that fruitless occupation.

I may tell the Minister that whomsoever he is deceiving by the statement he has made, he is not deceiving me.

I have now told you what the position is so far as the higher posts are concerned. Does Deputy Dr. Ryan still share Deputy MacEntee's view? There are 13 higher posts in the society and the occupants of these posts will go into the Department of Social Welfare where there will be a much larger number of higher posts. Deputy Dr. Ryan must know that so far from restricting the opportunities for promotion of officers transferred from the society to the Department, these officers are getting a much wider opportunity than they had before.

I do not think clerical officers will get that opportunity.

Why should they not get it? Does the Deputy suggest that clerical officers are not promoted to the minor staff officer grade?

They are, but very seldom beyond that.

Let us pass to the question of what is to happen the clerical staff taken over from the National Health Insurance Society. I have said in the most positive way that they will be assimilated into analogous Civil Service grades. There is no intention to worsen their position. Not only will the salary not be worsened, but in many instances it will be improved. In the case of clerical officers, the maximum salary is increased from £430 to £470. That will be done in the next couple of months when the scheme is pushed forward. The staff of the National Health Insurance Society have no fear that it will not be done. The organisations catering for them expect that it will be done. I say to those Deputies, who want to be convinced that these people are getting a fair deal, that they can be satisfied that as sure as they are sitting here to-night what I am saying now in respect to the personnel will be implemented. There will be no worsening of conditions. In many instances there will be an improvement in salaries. There will be improved pensions and in my view there will be wider opportunities for promotion.

Why do you not write that in the Bill?

We were discussing, until Deputy MacEntee's intervention, amendment No. 4.

Red herring No. 1.

Deputy MacEntee compared the amendment tabled in my name with the amendment tabled by Deputy Dr. Ryan. Inasmuch as Deputy MacEntee has coupled the amendments together, I am entitled to do the same. I should like to put this to the House and to the Minister. I had a specific reason for tabling the amendment on the Order Paper to-day. That was to direct the Minister's attention to the position that exists. I am in agreement to a very large extent with the point of view expressed by Deputies opposite, that it would be preferable to write these guarantees into the Bill. I am not going behind any door to say that.

You have not the courage to vote for it.

But I am not going to allow Deputies to lead me up any garden path. If the Deputy and his Party want to play politics irrespective of the harm it may be to the employees of the society, I am not going to play politics with them.

The Deputy did not show how it would do harm.

There is an essential difference between the amendment tabled in my name and the amendment tabled by Deputy Dr. Ryan. The purpose which Deputy Dr. Ryan's amendment seeks to achieve is admirable but I still suggest it is not practicable and that the best way to serve the purpose which he seeks to achieve, if he is concerned with the protection of the staff, is to accept the assurance which his amendment very usefully evoked from the Minister in the House to-day. I suggest that so far as Deputy Dr. Ryan's amendment deals with existing rights and throws open for consideration particularly the question of promotion, it is a totally different amendment from the one which I have tabled. The amendment I have tabled merely seeks to write into the Bill a statutory guarantee of a grade which will give a commensurate salary. The amendment reads:—

"Where a person is appointed to a situation in the Civil Service of the Government by virtue of sub-section (1) of this section such appointment shall be to a situation in a grade not less favourable as to salary scale as such person's existing grade in the service of the society."

In other words, it is an amendment seeking to guarantee that there will be no reduction in salary scale.

Deputy Dr. Ryan's amendment goes considerably further than that and in my submission it is not practicable. The charge is levelled against me in this House that I originally expressed the view that his amendment should be supported. I said about it originally what I am saying now, that I thought there was an estimable idea at the back of the amendment but that it was not one which could be supported because —I used these words—"it would create a service within a service." That, to my mind, is the kernel of the real objection to it. I think that the Minister, without occasioning any grave inconvenience to his Department, without embodying any wrong principle in the Bill and without going to immediate war with the Department of Finance, might very well accept the amendment tabled in my name. I am satisfied, at any rate, with the assurance which the Minister has given, and given in unequivocal terms. I think that anybody who is honest in his approach to the question, anybody who is concerned with the interests of the employees and who approaches the question from that angle, will be similarly satisfied. Of course, one thing is very obvious from what we have heard in the House in the last hour and a half. It is perfectly obvious that Deputy MacEntee came in here to play politics in this matter.

Deputies

Not at all.

There was reasoned discussion and reasoned consideration of the subject matter of Deputy Dr. Ryan's amendment until that time. He is perfectly entitled to play politics if he wishes but I would point out to him that by doing so, he is not doing any service to the interests of the people on whose behalf he purports to speak and that his attitude is not an honest attitude.

I want to know, if the Minister is prepared to give the assurance that Deputy Lehane has said he has given, why we cannot get the assurance written into the Bill? The Minister is much longer a member of this House than I am but even in my time, I have a fair recollection of his insisting on the transferred officers section being written into the Electricity Supply Board Act. That was one Act. Another Act in which he insisted on a similar provision was the St. Laurence Hospital Act. The transferred officers sections in these Acts are much wider in scope than what is proposed here. What objection therefore is there to putting this section into this Bill? The Minister knows that, if it were not for that section in the Electricity Supply Board Act, certain officers might have suffered disability. That was publicly advertised from time to time. What objection, I again ask, is there to writing a guarantee into this Bill that employees on transference will not suffer in any way, not alone in their present conditions but as to prospects to which they might logically look forward? That was the way the sections were worded in the other Acts, that they should not be deprived of what they might logically have expected if they had remained in the service from which they were transferred. Deputy O'Higgins may smile but Deputy O'Higgins may not be interested in the unfortunate people whose future positions are at stake. I am interested in them.

You are merely playing politics.

The debate on this amendment has gone on for quite a long time, and certainly the arguments for and against it have been repeated on many occasions. When I asked the Minister at what time he expected the appointed day, what I meant was when the transfer day would be. The Minister replied that it would probably be a couple of months after the passing of this Bill. This Bill will take effect within a reasonable period—three or four months at the outside—and what we are anxious to ensure is that all the staff of the National Health Insurance Society, when going into the Civil Service, will go into a grade that will be comparable to their present grade in regard to status and salary. That is what we all want.

The Minister has given the House and the staff the clearest guarantees that no member of the staff will lose by the transfer, either in status or in salary; that, in fact, the majority of them will benefit in salary by the transfer, that they will also benefit in status, and in the opportunity for promotion. The Minister has gone further and he has assured the House that the staff of the society accept those guarantees and that the staff organisations, representing the staff, also accept them.

There is one very simple issue involved. There are quite a number of grades or classes in the National Health Insurance Society staff. I was of the opinion, on the Second Reading, that the Minister should write into the Bill a section showing the particular grade in the Civil Service to which these particular classes in the staff of the society would go. I think the Minister could still do that without writing it into the Bill or without putting the amendment at present under discussion into the Bill. He could do so by saying to each member of the staff of the society, or each grade or class in that staff: "When this Bill is passed you will be taken into the Civil Service in this particular grade"—the grade to be named—"and your salary scale will be from so much to so much."

If that were done, that is all that any person would require. The guarantee, as far as this is concerned, is a guarantee that will be completed on the day when the particular official of the National Health Insurance Society is transferred into the Civil Service. The guarantee goes no further than that. What we are really anxious about—at least, what I am anxious about—is that no member of the staff of the society will have his position or condition worsened by the passage of this Bill. If each particular grade in the society's staff were to be told by the Minister to-morrow, or before this Bill is passed: "You are going into this particular grade of the Civil Service; your salary scale will be from such and such a figure to such and such a figure; under the provisions of the Bill you are entitled to so many years' service and, therefore, your starting salary in the Civil Service will be so and so", that would be quite satisfactory.

I had hoped, and I still hope, and I believe my hope will be achieved, to grade these people into their Civil Service gradings before the transfer date, that is, before they are taken over by the Department, so that they will know before they go into the Department what their grading will be and what their salary scale will be.

That is satisfactory up to a point, but the Minister would make it completely satisfactory if he would indicate to the staff of the society before this Bill passes what he intends to indicate to them before the transfer date. If he could do that before the Bill is passed, each and every one of us would know that every member of the staff of the society was satisfied. I am perfectly certain that Deputy Ryan would agree that, in these circumstances, there will be no necessity to press this particular amendment.

Let me say this about a section of the National Health Insurance Society. I am quite sure other Deputies have received a copy of this document that I have received from the Connacht Provincial Committee. The members of that committee are worried about their position. I do not see why they should be worried; their present condition does not seem to be too good. They have onerous duties, a multitude of duties, to perform and their hours are not entirely Civil Service hours. They are classed as part-time workers. They have to maintain and provide their offices, to be in attendance at all reasonable hours from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., to deal with claims to sickness, maternity and marriage benefits, claims under the additional benefits scheme, which include dental, optical and hospital benefits, etc. They issue benefit cheques to the average amount of £100 per week and reply to correspondence from head office, members of the Society and the general public.

The duties, as one can see, are pretty varied and comprehensive, and for performing those duties they receive on an average £5 a week. Out of that £5 a week they pay office rent of £1 a week—I think that is slightly exaggerated—fire and light of office, £1 a week, postage, 12/- a week, travelling expenses 5/- a day or 15/- a week for three days' travelling, all of which leaves the unfortunate outdoor representative, or agent, with a net salary of £2 13s. 0d. a week to support himself, his wife and family. I cannot imagine any Civil Service grade to which that person would be appointed in which he could possibly be worse off than that. The agents have asked me, and I am sure they have asked other Deputies, to raise their case in this debate.

The Deputy appreciates that I have no responsibility at present for their conditions of employment or wages. They are employed by the National Health Insurance Society.

I do. I am just making the case that, when this Bill becomes law, I think I can safely say, without being a Minister, that they can look forward to having a substantial improvement in their conditions. I think that without worrying the House any further I could, in reply to the case they make, satisfy them myself personally on that point.

They are also concerned in the matter of promotion to the rank of inspector. However, that is a matter that can be raised on the ordinary administration of the Department when the Bill becomes law. I think that the Connacht Provincial Committee, the other committees and the agents right through the country can be satisfied that in no circumstances can their conditions be worsened by the passage of this Bill, and that, whoever else has to worry, they will have no worries on that particular score.

I would conclude by again asking the Minister when speaking on the Bill to-morrow, or whenever it comes up again for discussion, to consider whether he cannot make his allocation in regard to grades in the Civil Service of the present staff, so that each and every one of us would know that this allocation was acceptable to the staff as a whole, and that it was welcomed. I think we indicated on the Second Stage of the Bill that what we want, and what the Minister wants in his Department is a contented staff. From what I know of the National Health Insurance Society he will be getting over an efficient staff, a staff whose ability has never been properly recognised in regard to remuneration. That ability may now be recognised when this Bill becomes an Act. From what I know of certain officials in the National Health Insurance Society, I have no doubt whatever that many of them will reach very high grades in the Civil Service, and will be a credit to the country.

I have some experience of promises that were made in legislation some years ago. As a result of my experience I have no reason to doubt that, if in office, the Tánaiste's promises will be fulfilled as far as the employees are concerned. Yet, I still feel that the Tánaiste's promises can be compared to legislation by desire and not by fact, because no matter how we look at this, if the Tánaiste professes to be sincere in a matter of this kind he will accept Deputy Dr. Ryan's amendment. Let us, for example, suppose that in some years to come one of these transferred officers will have his conditions worsened through some cause or other. Let us, again, suppose that he takes his case to some tribunal or court or to a committee within the Civil Service. In law, that man will have nothing to fall back on except the assurance that was given by the Minister who introduced this Bill. The Tánaiste is long enough in the House to know that an assurance of that kind is in law, so far as an employee or employees are concerned, not worth the paper it is written on.

I have had two types of experience during my 30 years' association with a local authority. In one case, the employees were told that, if they did not come under the 1909 Act, their conditions were assured under the 1890 Act. The result was that, when they wanted to claim a certain pension under the 1909 Act, they were told that they did not come under it, notwithstanding the fact that they were told by the parliamentarians at the time that their conditions would not be worsened, and that they would have the same opportunities as other people under that Act. Now, we here in this House are sensible men, I hope, and we are being asked to look upon things in a reasonable way. The Tánaiste and Deputies who are legal men know perfectly well —Deputy Cowan made the point—that legislation by promises and plausible ejaculations by any Minister introducing a Bill is eyewash as far as the law courts are concerned—that is as far as defending a man's status afterwards is concerned. Therefore, I hold that the Tánaiste should definitely embody Deputy Ryan's amendment in the Bill.

We had some heated exchanges here this afternoon dealing with things that were not in the Bill. This is a very serious matter for the employees. If an employee is transferred he should be protected by law in that transfer and his status should be protected by law and there is no use in doing it any other way.

I move to report progress.

Progress reported.
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